Mobile: Preparing for the Third and Final Wave

What do you imagine for the future of mobile? Share your vision below. Image: Marco Arment/Flickr

Prediction season is upon us, and it should come as no surprise that mobility is on everybody’s top tech trends list. IDC predicted that worldwide IT spending in 2013 will exceed $2.1 trillion, with mobility being the biggest driver of that growth. Like many, IDC also predicts that in 2015, U.S. consumers accessing the Internet through mobile devices will outnumber those using PCs to access the Internet.

My prediction? Today’s third wave of smart mobile devices, which shows no signs of slowing down, will be the last great disruptive computing platform. And though new devices, such as wearables and implantables will use the same underlying technologies as traditional mobile devices, I foresee a dramatic increase of pressure on developer’s to deliver quality as the technology becomes more deeply implanted in our everyday routines. Literally.

Mobile as the Final Technology Wave

The first wave of major disruptive consumer technologies was the advent of personal computing, spawned by the PC. This was soon followed by the second wave — the Internet — which served to connect all of these PCs to one another and to vast amounts of information.

Mobile is the third and final wave; new technological advancements will simply be extensions of mobile. By combining the technologies of its predecessors and creating an internet omnipresence, mobile will be the cornerstone upon which every major new consumer technology is based.

Additionally, as mobile technology continues to drive innovation in consumer electronics — think iPads and Google Glass — companies must begin to rethink the ways they develop mobile apps and build their mobile brands to meet the needs of consumers.

New Devices, Same Underlying Technologies

As mobile penetrates every facet of our lives, its extension to new types of technologies and devices is inevitable. But make no mistake. While the third wave introduces new types of wearable devices (e.g., Google Glass, Samsung Galaxy Gear, and other wearables) and potentially radio-based implantables, the underlying mobile technologies haven’t changed.

Fig 1: Example of a Google Glass use case (SRC)

For example, Google Glass runs the same Android OS as your smartphone, which allows mobile app developers to develop specific niche apps for Google Glass using many of the same tools they used before. What will grow here is the extension of the mobile platform towards innovative use cases, such as augmented reality and location based services, and incorporation of innovative capabilities like voice command and NFC.

In addition, network-related technologies (Bluetooth, WiFi, bandwidth compression technology) will play a significant role in the evolution of niche applications for these new mobile devices. Since these devices rely on the same mobile OS as smartphones and tablets, they would also be impacted by the same mobile OS bugs, increasing the impact on specific wearable mobile apps. Application developers and testers, already hard-pressed to cover a mobile market with hundreds of devices and screen resolutions, now need to find ways to test a new set of unique use cases that involve different means of communication with various devices in different locations, low battery tests and more.

Another wearable device that is growing in popularity is mobile accessories. Recently Sony, Samsung and Apple all launched mobile OS-based watches (see below).

FIG 2: Sony, Samsung and Apple mobile watches

In addition, we also see growth in the sports industry with major brands like Nike and Adidas offering wearable devices (e.g. Nike+ Fuelband), as well as new, disruptive companies like Fitbit and Jawbone, which all communicate with the mobile smartphone to produce results.

Changing Role of the Developer

The speed of mobile demands agile development — there is no way around it. With new devices added to the market continuously, constant updates to operating systems, and an eminent explosion of new devices, agile is the only method to support such a rapid pace of development.

The role of the mobile developer will grow and become more central to the entire SDLC chain as new devices with the same mobile technologies drive new “packaging” and evolving methods of engagement. Developers shift from programming “point and click” to advanced technologies involving pinch, zoom, swipe, eye gaze detection, increasing the speed and complexity of these devices. With history as our guide, the increase of development velocity will continue, as will the necessity of automation to balance requirements of increased speed of delivery and quality.

As the final technology wave, mobile continues to drive innovation and we can expect numerous extensions of mobile technology into areas that we haven’t even imagined yet. Application developers and enterprises will need to extend their mobile testing matrix to cover these new types of devices, which will only grow in the future.

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